Saturday, November 22, 2014

Decluttering

This year has been one of decluttering for us. We have had Big Brothers Big Sisters make multiple pick-ups and we also have dropped off multiple donations at the thrift store. We have gotten rid of a LOT of stuff. We have gotten our house pretty much decluttered, except the kids' bedrooms and the garage.

 
These are the donations we will drop off at the thrift store in a little bit.
 
 
I also decluttered the pantry. These two bags will be donated to a food pantry.
 
How did we collect so much unwanted stuff? Well, some things we outgrew and didn't need anymore, some were gifts, some we just didn't want to deal with, some things we thought we'd need then later found out we didn't...
 
At first the task of decluttering seemed overwhelming because I knew we had too much stuff, but didn't know what to do with it. It was also hard to admit that we, as a family, had collected so many things we just didn't need, it seemed to be admitting we were wrong about so much.
 
The one area in our home that is not decluttered are the kids' bedrooms.  They want to keep almost everything, but we have drastically slowed down the amount of things coming in. Frank will be building shelves for the garage soon, then we will tackle the big project of decluttereing the garage. We will also put a toy rotation system in place, because we will have a place to store the toys not in use.
 
I now keep a box for donations in the garage. Whenever we come across an unwanted item we simply put it in the box. I also make time to occasionally go through each room and see if there are more things to get rid of. Another change I made was I now go through the mail right when it comes into the house and junk mail goes into the trash immediately.
 
Now that the house is mostly decluttered; its freeing. Cleaning up takes much less time and even when it is messy there's not much to pick up; since everything has a place, it is much easier to put everything back in its place. Not only that but the house looks better too. Decluttering is hard work and a continuous process, but the rewards are worth the effort.
 
Marie-Anne


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